Madrid, Spain (CNN) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez denied an allegation that his government helped train Basque separatists trying to create an independent state.
The allegations surfaced Monday, when Spanish media reported that two captured members of the outlawed Basque separatist organization known as ETA told authorities they had received arms training in Venezuela in 2008. Juan Carlos Besance and Xabier Atristain, members of an ETA cell known as Imanol, were arrested September 29.
And a Spanish judge said in March that the Venezuelan government facilitated a long-time cooperation between leftist rebels in Colombia and ETA.
Chavez called the accusations a "broken record."
"There's a permanent conspiracy against the true democratic processes," Chavez said Monday night on the state-run VTV network.
El Pais and El Mundo newspapers and other Spanish news outlets reported Monday that Besance and Atristain said they met in Venezuela with Arturo Cubillas Fontan. A Spanish High Court indictment this year alleges that Cubillas has been ETA's leader in Venezuela since 1999 -- in charge of the separatist group's relations with the Colombian rebels known as the FARC. Cubillas became an official in Venezuela's Ministry of Agriculture in 2005, the indictment says.
The judge in that 26-page indictment, Eloy Velasco, said, "There are investigations in this case which show cooperation between the Venezuelan government and the illicit collaboration between the FARC and ETA."
ETA and the FARC, which is the Spanish acronym for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, have been designated as terrorist organizations by the European Union and the United States.
Spain asked for an explanation from Venezuela at the time of the indictment, but Chavez and other officials denied the allegations.
Spain seemed to downplay the latest accusations, with Second Deputy Prime Minister Manuel Chaves saying in a radio interview that anything attributed to two ETA suspects must be weighed carefully.
Nevertheless, Chaves said, the Spanish government has asked for renewed explanations from Venezuela. But, the Spanish official said, Chavez has reiterated that Venezuela does not support ETA and terrorists.
ETA is blamed for more than 800 deaths in its long fight for Basque independence. Founded in 1959, ETA is an acronym for Euskadi ta Askatasuna, which means "Basque Fatherland and Liberty" in the Basque language. The group "conducts terrorist attacks to win independence for a Basque state in northern Spain and southwestern France," according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
CNN Madrid Bureau Chief Al Goodman contributed to this report.
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